Gardening 2019, share your plans!

[Sky5678]

This will be my first year gardening! I'm planting chamoe (Korean melon, tastes like a cross between honeydew and cucumber, I highly recommend) When the weather warms up, I'm going to get a strawberry plant, and maybe some bird friendly plants that I can supplement in my future quails' diet... any recommendations?

 

[LittleMissCountry]

Last year was our first year in our new house. My biggest success was my herb garden (in pots). Our soil is almost all clay and rocks. We did get some fruit trees planted (peach, pear and apple), and they came back strong this spring.
I have already started seeds in pots and grow bags. I planted carrots, peas, green beans, potatoes, ground cherries, garlic, tomatoes, peppers, watermelon and cantelope. I also started my herb garden again.

The peas and green beans are already about 3 inches tall. The carrots have started emerging, and so have the ground cherries.

I still have to plant my gourds, luffas, pumpkin and cucumber. I am hoping my hubby builds the raised garden this year before I do so. Otherwise I will be working the soil like crazy, adding in garden soil and compost to make it work.

Oh, and I planted three hazelnut trees/shrubs this weekend.

 

[Kholts]

I’m jealous most of you can grow fruit trees and melons. We can pretty much only grow berries and even then You need a nice mature bush to get enough fruit.

 

[LittleMissCountry]

I’m jealous most of you can grow fruit trees and melons. We can pretty much only grow berries and even then You need a nice mature bush to get enough fruit.

I moved from the mountains in Colorado, so I feel your pain. I couldn't even get blueberry bushes to grow. The only thing I could grow was spinach and broccoli. I am really enjoying my expanded garden here.

 

[Searsmom]

Well, I tried blueberries in the ground a couple of years ago. They all died. I'd like to try them in pots, maybe next year. I'd really like to have a 10 x 10 dedicated to sunflowers, but the weeding kills my back. I'm experimenting with a bare area in the yard, planted sunflowers, bush beans, nasturtiums, borage and marigolds in groups of 3. Minimal weeding. Crossing my fingers. We'll see if anything survives my experiment. It was an early spring, gotta grow something moment.

 

[LittleMissCountry]

Well, I tried blueberries in the ground a couple of years ago. They all died. I'd like to try them in pots, maybe next year. I'd really like to have a 10 x 10 dedicated to sunflowers, but the weeding kills my back. I'm experimenting with a bare area in the yard, planted sunflowers, bush beans, nasturtiums, borage and marigolds in groups of 3. Minimal weeding. Crossing my fingers. We'll see if anything survives my experiment. It was an early spring, gotta grow something moment.

I have one blueberry plant that I planted last year, and it is coming back this year! We have wild blueberries all over, though! I didn't realize that until after I had planted mine. Lol.

I have tried sunflowers and cannot get them to grow past one foot tall. Either they die or the deer eat the top off.

 

[Searsmom]

I have tried sunflowers and cannot get them to grow past one foot tall. Either they die or the deer eat the top off.[/QUOTE]

I hadn't thought about that. Hopefully the dog is close enough to that area to scare them off

 

[itsasmallfarm]

right now am hoping to start a orchard.

looking at some land and thinking if we get it, that i want a nice orchard. only issue is that its zone 2 hardiness so very limited to what i can grow. (and then dealing with the wild life is another issue)

 

[JenniferDuBay]

If you're having trouble growing European transplanted types of fruits, try some natives- or try something from areas with your climate. Pawpaw, alpine strawberries, gooseberries, some types of plums, persimmons, some hardy kiwi can do well just about anywhere. After moving to Florida, nothing I was used to growing would grow for me, I had to either triple my water usage or spread so much fertilizer about that it just wasn't worth it. But the trick is to work with the land and climate not against it. I quit raising strawberries, tomatoes, etc, and found areas around the world with similar climates. So now I do have tomatoes, but they're the wild type: Everglades tomatoes. Teeny tiny, smaller than a blueberry, but they grow, and they grow very well. In fact, after adding biochar and heavy mulching of my garden, I've only watered twice this year- and I'm on sand. You have to find things that want to grow for you.

 

[Searsmom]

I agree, blueberries are wild here too, I figure it's just me.

I've been growing currant tomatoes, mostly because they have that old tomato flavor that you don't find...anywhere...anymore. Even in heirloom tomatoes homegrown. It's like the bigger they bred them, the more flavorless they got. I am growing a cherokee purple so I can have a few sliced tomatoes to munch on, but the currant ones can be picked by the handfuls for salads and chomping. Wild blackberries are flowering like crazy, going to spend a frantic week (in June) picking them all and fighting off the birds.